The Gamma Option (39 page)

Blaine tore the binoculars from his neck, not believing what they had shown him as the Apache had passed over the remnants of the barricade.

“Circle back,” he ordered the pilot. “The Indian and I are making an unscheduled stop here.”

“Say again, sir.”

“You heard me.”

“I have no orders to—”

“I don’t give a shit, son. You do what I say or I’ll drop you into that corpse field and drive this thing myself.”

“What about the others?”

“Order ten of them to proceed with Operation Firestorm as planned. Have three or four others cut off the far end of this street from the rest of the world. You maneuver around above us and use your chain gun to help cut down anything in uniform.”

“Whatever you say, sir. But it’s your funeral,” the pilot warned, bringing the agile Apache around.

“Save your flowers.” He turned to Wareagle while he strapped the Vulcan minigun over his shoulder and attached its harness to his gunbelt. The Kevlar bodysuit he’d just donned was already baking him, the sweat clammy on his flesh. “Let’s call ourselves a taxi, Indian.”

The buffer between the waves of Revolutionary Guardsmen and the barricade was shrinking rapidly to nothing. There were simply too few defenders left to do the job adequately, and many of those that remained lacked the strength to fire, or even reload.

Blood rushed down Yakov’s face from his spill off the barricade. He had managed to climb back up to a fortified position, firing out with a mere pistol. Two shells were left when a single bullet split his skull and killed him. Of the Iranian leaders, only Rashid remained, untouched in his roving position, still giving orders up and down the lines to fewer and fewer fighters.

Kourosh hadn’t fired his rifle when he emerged from the barricade. Unexpected terror had kept him still and hunched, and for a few moments that saved his life. Then a band of soldiers spotted his quivering form, saw the gun in his hands, and prepared to fire. The boy cringed and closed his eyes to the certainty of his own death. Instead of gunfire, though, he heard a powerful metallic clanging and felt himself being shoved backward against the remnants of the barricade.

McCracken and Wareagle had slid down from the specially adapted lead Apache on a pair of drop lines just seconds before, under cover from the attack ship’s 30-millimeter chain gun. Blaine had glimpsed the fallen Evira through his binoculars and clung to the hope she was still alive. She was his only chance of ever seeing Matthew again, and he found that well worth facing off against a thousand soldiers charging headlong up the street.

He and Johnny allotted only one hand to guide their slide down, the other already steadying their Vuicans to assure they wouldn’t be cut down upon landing by the soldiers nearest. Blaine’s landing placed him between a boy wielding a gun almost as big as he was and a group of charging guardsmen. He was able to shove the boy backward behind the shield formed by his body without missing a beat on the Vulcan. It felt surprisingly light and maneuverable, and after a few seconds he forgot about the weight altogether.

McCracken had never known such a battle, such a feeling. Virtually none of the onrushing swarm of guardsmen had noticed his drop. From a distance it had been camouflaged by the black smoke and soot filling the air. The soldiers must have thought the Apache was one of theirs until it opened fire on them. Furthermore, their attention was too focused on the remnants of the barricade and its defenders to notice anything else. They charged forward in an unstoppable wave. He and Johnny had landed within ten yards of one another and were firing in the controlled bursts Gunny Tom Beeks had advised. Bodies didn’t just fall in the paths blazed by the Vulcans’ 20-millimeter shells and the 30-millimeter rounds coming from the Apache; they rocketed backward, limbs blown off or huge cavities left where chests had been. Death came fast enough to leave the guardsmen without even an expression of shock or pain, just an open, glazed stare as body piled atop body.

The Vulcans continued to clang metallically, hell on the ears, with the large shells speeding from their six rotating barrels. As Blaine and Johnny swept the area before them, wave after wave of dark-clad soldiers fell to their onslaught. Those trying to circle for better position were cut down by the Apache’s gunner hovering above, who made all those not directly in the Vulcans’ line of fire his targets.

Nonetheless, Blaine and Johnny’s assault would have been finished hundreds of rounds before if not for the Kevlar. McCracken felt a fourth bullet and then a fifth smack his bodysuit, yet with the extra balance weight supplied by the minigun, he barely gave any ground. Three of the Apaches, meanwhile, had launched an all-out attack on the large concentration of guardsmen further down the boulevard. The result, just as he had hoped, was to splinter Hassani’s marauding troops and catch those who remained in a crossfire between the attack ships on one side and the Vulcans and the lingering Apache on the other.

The miniguns continued to spit their metallic fire. The ceaseless intensity of the battle was the only thing that saved McCracken from being sickened by the incredible bloodshed before him. He had seen battle a hundred times before, but never anything like this. The bodies were two, even three deep in spots, and the smell of blood and death raked his mind. The stifling heat inside his body armor proved a worthy distraction, seeming to grow hotter with each bullet the Kevlar stopped.

He no longer felt the Vulcan as it pulsed in his hand, the heat generated by its rotating cylinder blowing back into his face. The reduced pounding to his back told him well over half his ammo was exhausted, more than five-hundred rounds, and who knew how many kills to count for that. He continued to fire for a time after there was no real target left, the barricade behind him secured again by the surviving troops. At last Wareagle came to his side and pried his finger away from the trigger. The multi-barreled cylinder spun to a halt. All of the Apaches but the one hovering above them had roared to their assigned runs throughout the city. Johnny rotated his eyes and the Vulcan with deadly awareness, as Blaine turned and followed the boy whose life he had just saved through one of the many breaks in the barricade’s structure. The boy made straight for Evira who was lying wounded on the street.

Her eyes were open but dim.

“Better late than never,” she managed when her eyes found McCracken.

“You blackmailed the right guy.”

She coughed painfully and writhed back toward unconsciousness. Blaine looked to Wareagle, who by then was kneeling by her side.

“Indian?”

“Deep wounds, Blainey, but no vital organs touched. She’ll live if medical attention is prompt.”

“What are you doing here?” Evira asked, as if suddenly realizing his presence.

“I came to rescue a damsel in distress, of course.”

“There’s … more.”

“Okay, I’ve got an appointment beyond the barricades at the royal palace,” Blaine relented. “Which I happen to be late for.”

“Hassani?”

“Long story. The Indian’s calling our taxi down to get you the hell out of here.” He glanced at the boy. “I assume the pup here goes along for the ride.”

Evira nodded and found strength to reach up and grasp Blaine at the elbow. Her stare was intense through all her pain, as she fought to remain conscious.

“Why did you come?” she demanded.

“You up to hearing it now?”

Another nod. “Tell me.”

Blaine obliged and Evira felt the shock of his revelation numb her along with the pain as the Apache lowered overhead with a stretcher dangling from its underside.

“What can you tell me about the rest of the city?” Blaine asked the Apache pilot while the gunner who doubled as a paramedic tended to Evira.

“Thanks to the Apaches, most of it’s a fucking fire zone,” he reported. “We’ve cut the soldiers off from their strongholds and splintered them. As planned. The people are everywhere. Looks like the revolution’s working.”

“And the palace?”

“The Revolutionary Guard has pulled back to make a last stand there. Best estimates say they can hold it for an hour, ninety minutes at the outside.” The pilot paused. “Gonna be tough for the two of you to get inside.”

“You just get us there and we’ll worry about the rest.”

Chapter 31

JOHNNY AND BLAINE MOVED
to the back of the Apache where they stripped off the stifling body armor that had saved their lives. McCracken resisted the temptation to count the impressions made by what surely would have been mortal wounds and simply discarded the suit atop the Vulcan miniguns in the corner. What he was just starting to consider was the fact that he and Wareagle had gone the limit with equipment that had been meant to get them into the palace. Without the Vulcans and Kevlar body armor, gaining access was going to be difficult indeed.

“There’s a tunnel,” a drugged Evira rasped after overhearing discussion of their dilemma.

“What tunnel?” Blaine asked as he moved back toward her.

But her eyes closed and unconsciousness claimed her before she could answer.

“Well, I guess that pretty much determines we take a more direct route, Indian. ’Less, of course, your spirits or somebody else can fill us in on this tunnel.”

“How about me?” the boy Kourosh said from the corner.

With the Apache pilot acting on Kourosh’s instructions, Blaine quickly transferred some of the supplies from his canvas duffel into a shoulder bag. Gazing out, McCracken could see the work accomplished by the rest of the Apaches. They had divided the city into grids and had proceeded to strafe the major pockets of guard positions. Most were roaming at present, flying low to the street to rely more on their chain guns and Folding-Fin Aerial Rockets. The Hellfire missiles were used only sporadically now that the guardsmen had dispersed into smaller groups and seemed most concerned with finding cover rather than retaliating. Besides the regiment standing steadfastly round the royal palace, no stronghold remained. The people were winning.

Blaine’s Apache streaked through the smoke-choked sky. At last the palace came into view and he found himself blessing his luck that the masses surging into the area had not yet overrun it, for this would have rendered the rest of his plan impossible. The pilot’s estimates were probably off, though. It was doubtful the palace guard would be able to hold their lines for the hour he had estimated.

The Apache hovered over the side street Kourosh had indicated and once again the drop lines were lowered. McCracken almost had to have the copilot restrain the boy to keep him from following, making him think of Matthew. Evira had started to mention something about his whereabouts but Blaine had cut her off. He didn’t want to hear a thing about Matthew until his mission was completed. If he survived the raid on the palace, his reward would be the boy’s location. If he didn’t, Johnny Wareagle would take over.

“Meet us on the roof in forty minutes,” was Blaine’s final instruction to the pilot.

“I’ll be there.”

McCracken and Wareagle had both opted for Uzis this time, weapons they hoped they wouldn’t need, thanks to their covert entry into the palace. The street they dropped into was strangely deserted, a kind of temporary oasis in the desert of battle they were a part of. It was a small street with enough buildings to hide their drop from all who might have been following the Apache’s path. McCracken made sure his shoulder sack and its contents were securely in place and then rushed toward the tunnel entrance’s position as Kourosh had described it.

The wails and screams of the approaching masses were growing louder by the second and he had begun to fear they might storm the street before the two of them could climb down. But they located the entrance easily and Johnny lifted the grating up and placed it back into position as soon as they were both safely inside. The Indian joined Blaine at the foot of the ladder and together they started down the tunnel, flashlights illuminating their way toward the royal palace and General Amir Hassani.

“How are we to get out of here?” the Syrian delegate demanded of Hassani, moving from the library window that showed the last complement of guardsmen preparing to make their stand against the onrushing masses.

“There is a way prepared,” Hassani replied calmly. “I assure you.”

“It is difficult to accept the assurances of a man whose government is toppling,” shot out the delegate from Libya.

“Revolution is good for the soul at the proper intervals,” Hassani told the seven of them. “It cleanses a nation’s system and reveals the traitors in our ranks.”

“But you’re
losing
!” the man from Jordan blared. “Your ‘people’ will be upon us in no time.”

“The losing is a mere illusion, easily corrected in barely any time at all. Besides, what does it matter? What do any of our countries or movements matter individually so long as we must all live in fear of a small and brutal neighbor? It will all change after tomorrow. You’ll see. That’s why you are here.”

“You should have provided the details of your secret weapon before,” the delegate from the PLO chastised. “Instead you called us here at the risk of our own lives, knowing full well your nation was crumbling.”

“We’ve been through this before,” Hassani returned. “It is all behind us while this, my friends, is what lies ahead.”

Hassani moved to the table that had been set up in the center of the circle the seven men formed. Placed atop it were seven identical leather cases. The general opened one of them to allow his delegates to see the ten eight-ounce glass vials contained inside. A few shifted about to better their views. Others just sat there stupefied.

“You mean
this
is your secret weapon?” one of them blurted incredulously.

Hassani smiled like a teacher in front of his class. “Not quite. Two days from now I will release a deadly virus over Israel—the ultimate creation of chemical warfare.
That
is the secret weapon I’ve held back for this long.” He pointed toward the table. “You see, a leak within our ranks might have allowed Israel to come up with a version of this: a vaccine that will render your people immune from the virus once it is released into the air. Within each of these cases are your allotments of that vaccine. Make sure the contents of these vials are dropped into the various water-treatment facilities of your respective countries and within twenty-four hours, ninety percent of your populations will be protected from what will destroy Israel in a similar period.”